Not in the solitude
Alone may man commune with Heaven, or see
Only in savage wood
And sunny vale the present Deity;
Or only hear his voice
Where the winds whisper and the waves rejoice.
Even here do I behold
Thy steps, Almighty!--here, amidst the crowd
Through the great city rolled
With everlasting murmurs deep and loud--
Choking the ways that wind
'Mongst the proud piles, the work of human kind.
The golden sunshine comes
From the round heaven, and on their dwellings lies
And lights their inner homes;
For them thou fill'st with air the unbounded skies
And givest them the stores
Of ocean, and the harvest of its shores.
Thy spirit is around,
Quickening the restless mass that sweeps along;
And this eternal sound--
Voices and footfalls of the numberless throng--
Like the resounding sea,
Or like the rainy tempest, speaks of Thee.
And when the hour of rest
Comes like a calm upon the mid-sea brine,
Hushing its billowy breast--
The quiet of that moment too is Thine
It breathes of Him who keeps
The vast and helpless city while it sleeps.
--William Cullen Bryant.
No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Believe not each accusing tongue,
As most weak people do;
But still believe that story wrong
Which ought not to be true.
--Richard Brinsley Sheridan.